Sunday, June 18, 2017

Offering Your Sharp Attention - Opening Keynote

Science suggests that your brain works best when it gives sharp attention in one direction, such as when you practice doing only one thing at a time. If you doubt that this is sound advice, then you can set up a very easy test in your own home.

Take any three tasks, such as drawing stars on a piece of paper, linking paper clips, and stacking pennies. Now play against someone in your family. Each of you has to do the same number of tasks, perhaps it is to draw twenty stars, link twenty paper clips, and stack twenty pennies.

One person proceeds doing each task individually, by drawing all twenty stars on a piece of paper, linking all twenty paper clips together, and stacking all twenty pennies. The other person has to rotate between the three tasks, doing three or four stars, two or three paperclips, three or four pennies. All other things being equal, who is going to win every time? The person who doesn't switch tasks frequently will be the winner.